I (17M) have been struggling with depression for a long time. Last night, I finally had a breakthrough moment. I was gaming with a friend at 2 AM, and we were having the funniest raids ever. I haven’t laughed that hard in months. It was the happiest I’ve felt in a long time.
The problem is my mom (36F) was trying to sleep and had a migraine. I was in my room, but I was laughing so hard I couldn’t really control the volume or breathe. She eventually huffed "Ugh!" loud enough for me to hear, and I immediately brought her the AirPods I was borrowing so she could use the noise cancellation. I even apologized for being loud.
Later, around 5 AM, she walked into the kitchen and muttered "Can he just shut the f*** up" under her breath. It completely killed my mood. I went quiet, deflated, and just went to bed. When I woke up later, I heard her complaining to her husband (my step dad) that I was "yapping" all night. When I walked in, she rolled her eyes and kept making comments.
Here is why I’m conflicted: I know 2 AM is late and she had a migraine, but there is a huge double standard in our house. She frequently screams at the TV during football games at 8 PM when I am trying to sleep, and she’s woken me and my brother up being loud way more times than I’ve ever woken her up.
When I try to point out that she does the same thing, she just says "I’m the adult, you’re the child." It feels like her being loud and happy is fine, but when I finally feel a spark of joy, I’m treated like a nuisance. I ended up just going back to bed to hide because I felt so bad.
AITA for being too loud during a rare "good day" with my depression, or is she being hypocritical?
Why didn’t you have school today?
2am. Cmon. Be respectful.
2 AM is more typically quiet hours than 8 PM.
YTA. Being loud at 2am is always asshole behavior, barring medical emergencies.
Now your mom is obviously very emotionally immature. I highly recommend the book “Adult children of emotionally immature parents” if you’re interested in that topic from a psychological lens.
Two things can be true at once. YTA, AND your mom is immature and doesn’t know how to communicate her needs and express her frustrations maturely.
why are you in bed by 8pm?
So that he can be awake in the middle of the night to play video games, obviously.
YTA just for not watching your volume when you’re gaming at 2am.
This has to be bait. Screaming at the tv at 8pm is not even remotely as bad as waking people up at 2am. YTA. If you’re up that late you have to be considerate of the other people trying to sleep. Also how are you still awake at 5am to hear her? When do you sleep? Being up all night isn’t healthy. You’re only 17 so I assume you’re not a night shift worker – being up that late isn’t doing your mental health any favors.
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Oh buddy. YTA
You were screaming at your game during sleeping hours and while you knew someone in the home had a migraine.
I get migraines frequently. For lack of a better word, any loud startling noise feels like you just stabbed me in the eye with an ice pick. Continuing to do so is likely to make me vomit.
My teen boys know how to be respectful of their volume levels, even while gaming, while I have a migraine. All I need to say is “Migraine protocol” and they know exactly what to do. They have known how to do this from a very young age.
8pm is not normal sleeping hours, so I really don’t see how these situations compare unless you and your brother both work the night shift.
YTA. If you can hear your mom huff “ugh” from a separate room, what makes you think she can’t hear your cackling? She had a migraine. An 8pm football game is NOT a double standard for 3am laughing. Most places are still serving dinner at 8pm. She wasn’t watching a recording of a football game at 3am.
YTA.
2am is quiet time, as everyone else has told you already. There’s also not much use to complaining about “double standards” here because…well, she does own the house, she is an adult, and 8pm is fundamentally different from 2am. So, yes, in two completely different situations, different things are and are not okay.
When you live alone, you can do whatever you like at whatever hour of day or night (as long as you’re not disturbing your neighbors). While you live with other people, you need to be considerate of quiet hours.
YTA it’s not about what either are you are doing when the other is making noise it’s about the time that you were doing it. There are such things as quiet hours and 2:00 a.m. is definitely one of them. No one should expect it to be quiet at 8:00 p.m.
You dont see the difference between 2am and 8 pm. Who cares that you are sleeping its a normal time of night for people to be up and making noise 2 am is not. YTA